E3 2009: Muramasa: The Demon Blade Hands-on

Anyone that's against the concept of "videogames as an art form" should take a good long look at any number games by Japanese developer Vanillaware. Unlike something along the lines of Flower or Noby Noby Boy (titles that could be labeled as expression as much as "games" at all) the Wii-exclusive Muramasa: The Demon Blade is still a traditional, action-packed 2D hack-n-slash game. It's also hands-down the most beautiful 2D game I've ever played.

The IGN Nintendo team has had a chance to check out the 2D epic in an early E3 build (essentially demo form) before the show floor opens, and the feeling is pretty unanimous across the board: 2D fans are going to just eat this game up. Combining some of the best traditional animation in recent memory, Demon Blade is, at its heart, a very simple game. It's pretty easy to control, it's a little too simplistic at times – granted we're only 15 minutes in due to this demo –and all the key action can be boiled down to one button. Of course with that being said we've also played through the demo multiple times, checking out both difficulties and both characters over and over again.

To check out direct-feed footage of the E3 demo, click above.

As far as the basics go, Muramasa plays out like a classic 2D action game with a RPG-lite mechanic built on top. You take the role of one of two fighters, drop into specific storylines and levels for each, and mix up some simple exploration with "room-to-room" (usually outside, but still section-based) exploration like a wider, linear Symphony of the Night, and enter into specific action sequences akin to something like Okami, featuring a screen hold, enemy spawning, and the drawing of your character's equipped blade. There's no striking when outside of battle, as your character sheathes the sword with a snappy, stylistic animation as an exclamation point at the end of each battle.

And really, what you'll find with Muramasa is even simpler than most of the classic Capcom beat-em-ups; at least as far as level scripting and layout tends to go. If you assumed the game would kick off with a tutorial, let you run a few screens, and then freeze you for a battle once or twice in each area, only to climax at a larger-than-life boss, you'd have nailed the demo itself dead on. The slight worry does come in that the game could be a bit too repetitive, but with three blades at a time (each with different special attacks, speed, RPG-like hit damage, and reach) and plenty of beautiful battling it remains surprisingly fun. We agree with our Japanese correspondent John Tanaka when he says he's literally pushing through the game just to see what else it has in store for him.

That's not to say the battle system is some slouch; it isn't. In fact, it's deceptively deep if you play on the game's harder mode, which requires mastery of all the seemingly insignificant skills. A is your regular attack, holding A is block, and then combining the button with directions gives you uppercut pop-up hits, dashing attacks (left or right and the A button), ground slices, a huge counter-attack (hold A, and then release for a jumping power strike) and then air versions of each. You can actually pop an enemy up, jump up and chase, combing a few times, and then air dash three times back and forth to blast them higher and higher on the screen.